Frankfurt Airport is Germany's largest airport, with expectations to double passenger and air freight numbers in the next ten years.
In the face of this projected increase in traffic and the accompanying logistics, it soon became clear that the existing datacenter infrastructure would be insufficient to meet these needs.
The solution was to go underground, and in 2006, the airport's new subterranean datacenter was opened. Thirty-feet underground, the facility gathers information to help manage airport services including ground traffic and luggage handling.
Gedas Operational Services, a joint venture between Fraport and German IT service provider T-Systems, operates the data center, which is currently running at about 30 percent capacity, with the other 70 percent earmarked for outsourcing.